The memories flowed freely Sunday evening, as 600 congregants, staff and board members, past and present, filled the main sanctuary of Congregation Adath Jeshurun to celebrate a memorable occasion -- the synagogue's 150th anniversary. When an historic synagogue celebrates its sesquicentennial, one night to assess the past is hardly enough. And so, the gathering on May 4 was billed as...

In Israel and for Jews around the world, Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's Independence Day, is the realization of a nearly 2,000-year-old hope for the Jewish people to have a free homeland. It's a day of joyous celebration -- for on May 14, 1948, on the fifth day of Iyar, the State of Israel was established. This year, Yom Ha'atzmaut begins at...

There's no arguing that the girls debate team at Torah Academy of Greater Philadelphia has come a long way in a relatively short time. Only in its second full season, it has amassed an impressive string of victories against educational institutions with larger student bodies and more established debating traditions. The eight-member squad recently placed first in a regional competition...

The date was Sept. 29, 1958, four in the afternoon of erev Rosh Hashanah. Holiday services were set for 8 p.m., but there still wasn't a finished floor in the modest synagogue sanctuary of the new congregation, Temple Beth Tikvah. So what did the congregants do? They got right down on their hands and knees, and finished the work themselves...

One of the remarkable characteristics of our computer-dependent society is the way we've fortified the metaphors of our lives to the extent that they can replace the lives that we lead in reality. Unlike the tangible, "brick-and-mortar" bookstores, we can browse the stocked "shelves" of Amazon.com in the middle of the night, dressed only in our pajamas. Social networking sites...